


The Way Home

by CornishIvy



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: AU, Haunted House, Haunting, coco is miguel's grandmother, dementia and aging are mentioned a lot, ernesto is still alive, ghost - Freeform, hector and imelda are his great grandparents, hector is a vengeful spirit, kinda creepy but not really scary, rearranged the rivera family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-04-23 19:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14339472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CornishIvy/pseuds/CornishIvy
Summary: Miguel is ecstatic when he gets the opportunity to stay with and look after his childhood hero, Ernesto de la Cruz. He doesn't stop to ask why Rosa wasn't able to hire actual professional caregivers. He doesn't ask why the other staff won't stay in the hacienda after dark, or why his new employer calls him by the wrong name. Not at first.





	1. La Llorona

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as little "what-if" kinda thing that eventually grew into an actual story. Characters are probably going to be a liiiitle ooc, but I'll try to keep them as close as I can. In order to make it more plausible for de la Cruz to still be alive, I had to delete a generation of Riveras. Sort of. Elena, Victoria, and Enrique are all siblings now, and instead of 2016, the story takes place in the mid 1980's.  
> I should also mention that I'm not Mexican, and don't speak coherent Spanish, so if anyone catches any mistakes or would just like to share information, please let me know!

Sometimes at night, Miguel could hear her crying. Her muffled weeping would wake him up. The first time had been a week after his great-grandma Imelda died. Clutching a stuffed dog, he’d followed the faint sound to the courtyard between the family house and the shop. He’d though it was his mother, or maybe his tía, Elena. That possibility terrified him. He’d paused before the door leading outside, not sure if he really wanted to see his mamá crying.  
But he’d pushed open the door and discovered not his mamá, but a stranger. A young woman in a long dark dress, bent over the well in the center of the yard. Her silhouette trembled with every suppressed sob, a hand clenched tight over her mouth. She clearly hadn’t wanted to be heard, but Miguel toddled into the yard, squeezing his toy with all his might. He’d made it halfway to her when she noticed him. Her crying cut off with a gasp, she jerked up straight, and Miguel saw flashes of ribbon in her hair as she spun to face him.  
“Miguel?” A voice from behind startled him, but he turned and saw his mother in her nightgown, standing in the doorway. “Mijo, what are you doing out here?”  
“I heard the lady crying,” he’d said. But when he turned back to the well, the woman was gone.  
His mother paused, listening. “I don’t hear anything,” she said softly, opening her arms to him. He let himself be lifted up and snuggled into his mamá’s shoulder. “There was a lady at the well. She was crying, but she ran away.  
“I think you were dreaming, mijo,” his mother murmured into his hair.  
He hadn’t been, but over time, he learned to ignore it. It became quickly apparent that no one else ever heard the woman weeping, and his abuelita became upset when he mentioned it to her. By the time he was twelve years old, he couldn’t hear it either, and by the time he was twenty-one, he barely remembered the woman in the courtyard.


	2. The Hacienda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel arrives.

“This is a terrible idea on a number of levels,” Rosa said, “But it’s also the only idea I have. There’s just no one else. Somehow, in all of Mexico, you are the only person I can get to take care of a rich old man.”

Miguel had tuned her out six miles ago. Instead of listening to his cousin’s deadpan incredulity, he was boiling with excitement. Not only was he spending a month in a fancy hacienda with a pool and who knew what else, he would be spending it in Ernesto de la Cruz’s hacienda. 

“And by God if he dies on your watch I will destroy you. You won’t even get a spot on the ofrenda next year. You’ll be that gone.”

Maybe he would even hear de la Cruz play. Maybe de la Cruz would tell him about his meteoric rise to fame. Maybe Miguel would find out why de la Cruz’s guitar was in his grandmother’s old family photo.

“It’s really not that hard, and you’re great with Mamá Coco, but Señor de la Cruz can be a bit intense sometimes. He gets confused.”

Miguel had found the photo when he was thirteen. The photos of Mamá Imelda and Coco that the family kept around the house were of a stern middle-aged woman and a grinning teenager. This black and white photo, however, was older. A young, though nonetheless stern, Imelda sat with a toddler Coco on her lap, and beside her stood a man. The man’s face had been ripped out of the picture, but his bright charro suit and distinct guitar remained. Miguel had recognized it in an instant.

“Okay, okay, okay, its fine. You’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. And if you’re not, no one can really blame me.”

This could only be the mysterious musician who had deserted his family all those years ago, the reason that Mamá Imelda had started the Rivera Zapatería. The reason Miguel had had to work at his family’s shop since he was a teenager, while secretly strumming a contraband guitar in the small hours of the morning, though he was reasonably sure his abuela knew about his playing and chose to overlook it. 

“You have to be cool, though. He’s got an ego, and he adores his fans, but don’t get weird about him. You still need to look after him while you’re there. This isn’t a vacation.”

He’d asked Mamá Coco about the picture, but she’d only sighed wistfully and said that some stories are better left untold. His mother had advised him to let sleeping dogs lie. His father had brought up a solid point: Even if Ernesto de la Cruz was his mysterious great-grandfather, he had abandoned them years ago. He wouldn’t be interested in reconnecting, or else he would have contacted them. So even though he’d burned with curiosity, Miguel had let the matter drop and the photo was folded up and put away. Until his cousin, who had forsaken the shoe shop to be a property manager for a historical estate that was miles away, called him with a special request. 

“Miguel if you don’t acknowledge what I am saying right now, you’re exiting this car at speed.”

He rolled his eyes, “Don’t geek out, not a vacation, no fun allowed, blah, blah, blah.”

“Essentially.” She sighed, “Please, Miguel, try to understand,” Rosa sounded tired, “Ernesto de la Cruz is not the man he used to be. It’s sad, but it happens. You can’t expect too much of him. And,” she paused, “Well. He gets… upset. Sometimes. He scares himself. You need to keep calm, especially when he isn’t.”

“Um,” Suddenly Miguel was having doubts, “Could you be a little more specific?”

“Just do your job and don’t freak out. Also,” she added thoughtfully, “He specifically requested someone who could play guitar, so I would imagine he’s going to want you to play for him. Is that going to be a problem?” She took a second to glance at her cousin’s face-splitting grin and gave a small smile of her own. 

“I thought so. Now, let’s run through it again so I know you’ve got this.”

“Ugh, fine.”

“Señor de la Cruz wakes up at seven every morning. That is, you’ll be waking him up at seven. He needs to eat on a schedule, so make sure he has breakfast by eight-thirty. Lunch is at one. He takes his siesta at two and gets up at three. Dinner is at five, and he needs to be in bed by ten. I gave you the list for his medication? Good, make sure he takes those on time every day. On Wednesdays he goes to see his doctor in the city, usually between one and four. You won’t be taking him, though, that’s up to his driver. You will be cooking for him, and tidying up in general. There is a maid service, but,” she frowned for a moment before continuing, “Well, it’s going to be you and him for the most part. Call me if anything comes up, will you?”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t worry so much.”

Rosa didn’t reply.

The hacienda was situated at the top of a steep hill. Miguel could feel Rosa’s poor car struggle against the incline. Additions and extensions had been stuck onto the main building until the whole structure resembled spokes on a wheel. It sat behind glittering fence work, surrounded by orchards and gardens like a gleaming white spider in a spun golden web.

Miguel counted six guards watching the gate itself, and five more positioned along the drive.

“Wow, think you have enough security here? Because I think you need at least twelve more guys.”

“Security has to be tight around the fence,” Rosa shrugged, “Since they don’t go up to the house.”

“What? No one’s in the house? Like at all?”

“I just told you. You and him. Here we are.”

After being ushered through the automatic gate, they coasted to a stop on a gravel carriage drive. Ahead of them, the house loomed, blinding in the sun. Miguel’s heart chose that moment to stutter.

“Oh gosh,” he said, “This is really it. I’m really going to meet him. Ernesto de la Cruz. This is happening.”

“Get it together,” Rosa said, though she was smiling, “and get a move on, I need to oversee some landscaping and meet with the historical society.”

“What?” Miguel yelped, now really panicking, “Wait, wait, wait, wait! You’re not going to introduce me?”

“Much as I’d love to, dear cousin, I don’t have the time. Señor de la Cruz needs a caretaker, and the gardeners need someone to hold their hands, and neither gave me a lot of prep time. Just relax. He’ll love you. I know he will, or I wouldn’t have asked you to come here. Now, if you could just,” she motioned vaguely towards the house, “chop, chop.”

Miguel was left standing on the drive, suitcase in hand, trying his very best not to go into cardiac arrest. 

“Okay,” he told himself as he climbed up the front steps.

“Okay,” he said, as he stood underneath the portico and stared at the huge double doors.

“Showtime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're off!  
> Kind of short, as chapters go. I can't say I'm perfectly satisfied with it, either, but if I only posted chapters when I'm satisfied, I'd never post at all.  
> Not a lot going on just yet, but no worries. The spooky stuff is just around the corner!


	3. Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel meets Ernesto

Miguel was put off balance the instant he stepped inside the atrium. Stepping through the doorway, he slammed into a wall of icy cold that had him shivering after the baking warmth of the sun outside. Stained glass in the roof shattered a kaleidoscope of colors into glittering pools on the mosaic floor. Every window, corner, and pillar seemed tilted, off center. Potted plants hung in neat rows beside each window, green tendrils dripping, slithering from their sconces, swaying slightly. A guitar-shaped fountain gurgled merrily in the center of the room. Miguel stared at it, somehow unable to comprehend its existence. 

“Rosa?” a quavering voice called from within the house. Miguel snapped to attention as man shuffled into the atrium. 

The man was bent with age, folded nearly in half over a milk-white cane. His wrinkled skin had been bleached by his long years and what hair he had left trailed like wisps of cloud from his wizened skull. He was so faded and pale, Miguel was given the impression that he was looking at a ghost. 

The old man’s eyes, however, had lost none of their sharpness. He regarded Miguel like a hawk, tilting his head, cold as stone. 

“Héctor,” he rasped. Miguel was chilled by the sound.

“Uh, no, Señor,” he said, tilting awkwardly away from the accusing stare, “I’m Miguel. Miguel Rivera? Rosa’s my cousin. She asked me to, uh, help you out here until she could hire someone permanent. Did she tell you?”

In less time than it took for Miguel to blink, the old man, who could only be de la Cruz, was smiling warmly, his entire demeanor transformed, “Of course, Miguel! Forgive me, must have slipped my mind. When you get to be my age, my boy, you’re doing well to remember your own name. Rivera, you said? I see now. I am Ernesto de la Cruz, but please just call me Ernesto. Why don’t you set your luggage down and follow me? I’ll give you a tour of the old place, eh? Then we can get you settled in. Come, come.”

With a speed Miguel would never have expected from such a withered frame, de la Cruz spun about and took off down the hallway, cane tapping as he went. Miguel could only follow. 

The rest of the house proved just as dizzying as the atrium. Miguel had to blink away the strange sensation that the paintings were melting off the walls. Every window was either deep set or stained glass, no doubt to fend off the burning sun, but left the house feeling gloomy and closed in. No matter how bright the sun or the lights within the house, the windows remained dark. 

“Here is the sala,” Ernesto said grandly as he ushered Miguel inside. “It doesn’t see much use, these days, I’m afraid. Not too many visitors anymore.”

Before Miguel could begin to take it in, de la Cruz was moving on, commenting as he went.

“The closer to the center of the house, the older the structure is. By the time the historical society got their hands on this place, it was almost unrecognizable. Your cousin has been trying to reconstruct the original sections of the hacienda, as well as the grounds. The newer wings, however, I can change however I like. Through here,” he went on, tugging his young companion through another door, “Is the dining room.”

And so the tour passed in a whirlwind. If Miguel hadn’t known that he would be living there indefinitely, he would have thought that de la Cruz was trying to hurry him out. His new host paused only once.

He stopped outside a heavy wooden door, reached for the door handle, and hesitated. Coiling vines and leaves had been carved onto the door, and Miguel almost had to convince himself that the wood was not breathing. 

“This,” de la Cruz said, “is the music room.”

He turned the handle and let the door swing open. Miguel stepped past him and couldn’t suppress a gasp of delight. 

The room was enormous and high ceilinged. The whole zapatería workshop could have fit inside. The back wall was one huge window, clear, letting sunlight flood in. Instruments were hung on every other wall. Trumpets, violins, an accordion, cellos, drums. But mostly guitars. Every shape, make, and style of guitar, some on pegs, some on stands, some in glass cases. 

But one in particular drew Miguel like a magnet. Hung in pride of place above all the others was Ernesto de la Cruz’s signature white guitar. The sun set the gold detail work ablaze. Every whorl was burning. 

Miguel felt like a pilgrim approaching a relic. 

Ernesto chuckled behind him, “I should have guessed you would be fan.”

“Oh, yes,” Miguel said as he turned, “I am! I mean, I really admire your work. Um.” The music room was like the eye of a storm. After the rushed and dreary tour, to stand still in the bright sun was like being tossed onto an island by a hurricane. It finally hit Miguel that he was standing right next to the Ernesto de la Cruz. 

“Do you play?” the old man asked.

“Yes, I do. Or, I did. I used to have a guitar. I, uh, don’t. Now.” Seeing Ernesto’s puzzlement, Miguel hurried on, “It’s just, my family hates music. There’s this whole story behind it. But basically, we were never allowed to listen to songs, or play instruments, or sing. But I’m not like the rest of my family. I’ve always been different. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a musician,” feeling childish, he almost didn’t add, “like you.”

He was tempted to tell his new employer about the man who’d abandoned them. He wanted to ask about Mamá Coco’s portrait. But the whole “Hey, are you my great-grandfather also why did you leave your family also would you be interested in us now?” conversation felt like something that needed to be brought out at the right moment. 

Ernesto was smiling at him, “My boy,” he said, “I know that one day, you will be a great musician. You can’t let your family’s disapproval hold you back.”

“I know,” Miguel said, watching de la Cruz closely, “But they’re still my family, you know?”

“Ah, Héctor,” Ernesto said, beaming, “You haven’t changed at all.”

~

Miguel wrestled with excitement and disappointment while he prepared dinner. Having arrived in the late afternoon, there wasn’t time for anything too complicated, so Miguel threw something together with what he could find, only half his mind on the task. 

He watched some sort of meat (beef maybe?) sizzle away on the stove and wondered if he was wasting his time. Would de la Cruz even have the presence of mind to even remember a family, or to care about them? Would asking about the photo only confuse him? What if it was just a strange coincidence, and he had nothing to do with the man in the picture? And who on earth was Héctor?

Whatever the answers to those questions turned out to be, Miguel had a job to do. He laid out the table settings and pressed the buzzer by the door to call de la Cruz to dinner. There were similar buttons in every room of the house, each with a slightly different tone. Miguel only hoped he could remember them all. It would be just like him to rush into the library while his boss had a heart attack in the sala. 

As if summoned by the thought as much as the bell, Ernesto stepped into the dining room. “Not just a musician, but a chef to boot! It smells, wonderful, Miguel,” he said as he sat,   
“Much better than what the last nurse used to make. I don’t think that woman ever cooked a day in her life. Might as well have eaten charcoal. I think we were both relieved when it came time for her to leave.” 

“I was wondering about that, actually,” Miguel said, “Rosa mentioned that she was having trouble with the people she hired to stay on here. That they kept leaving or something. She didn’t say why. Did, uh, did any of the people here before me tell you why they decided to quit?”

Ernesto put down his fork and tapped a bony finger thoughtfully on the table. “It’s a little complicated,” he said, “Everyone had a different reason. But the last one, Ceci. She told me it was the house.”

“The house?”

“Sí. Surely you’ve noticed? This isn’t the easiest place to live in. It suits me very well, but for some others, it’s a little… shall we say off-putting? I understand. Who wants to spend all day cooped up in here with a silly old man like me, eh?” He waved away Miguel’s protests, “Never mind all that. For now, let us simply hope that you have a better time here than the others.” He lifted his glass in a toast.

Just as Miguel raised his own glass, the buzzer sounded from the hallway. It was as though someone were pressing the button repeatedly, rapidly, until the sound became one long hum.

“That’s the music room,” Ernesto said, rising shakily and reaching for his cane.

“Wait!” Miguel said as he stood, “I’ll check it out. You stay there.”

The noise stopped the moment Miguel stepped into the hallway. He jogged in the heavy silence and reached the music room in seconds.

The room was empty. The button by the door was innocuously quiet. The sun had set, and the far window was dark, turning the whole wall into a black mirror.

He glanced round, checking for any sign of an intruder. His eye was drawn to the wall, where four pegs hung, empty. The skull guitar was gone. Before he could work himself into a real panic, he caught sight of it, propped next the chair.

There was no way it could have fallen. Which meant that, if Ernesto hadn’t moved it before dinner, there was someone else in the house. Maybe it was one of the staff, he reasoned. Sure, Rosa had said that for the most part it would just be de la Cruz and Miguel. But someone must have moved it. Someone must have set off the buzzer. 

“Miguel?”

The voice startled him out of his musings and he whirled around to see Ernesto peeking in. “Did you find what made that noise?”

“Maybe? Actually, no, not really. But there was this,” Miguel said, gesturing to the guitar, “I think it… fell?”

Ernesto’s gaze turned dark when he saw the guitar. He shuffled towards it, frowning, “It didn’t fall,” he murmured. 

“I didn’t touch it!” Miguel said, raising his hands, “I swear!”

Ernesto chuckled as he lifted the instrument. He stroked the body once, then sighed and replaced it on the wall. “I know you didn’t. It has a mind of its own. Likes to wander.”

Miguel was nonplussed, “Wander?” he repeated, “Guitars do that?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ernesto said ominously. Then he laughed at Miguel’s expression, “You young people,” he chortled, “Never mind. Let’s get back to dinner, shall we? I would hate for your wonderful meal to get cold.”

Miguel had been ready to dismiss the whole thing. If Ernesto wasn’t worried, then he had no reason to concern himself. But as they sat down to eat, a bell began tolling. A deep, resonating sound that rattled the plates. Miguel half-stood, but Ernesto waved him down.

“The chapel,” he said, “It’s the old chapel. Sometimes the wind blows the bell, it’s nothing.”

“The wind does that?” Miguel asked. Slow, even chimes rocked the very air. It sounded deliberate.

“Pay no attention,” Ernesto said, “I need to have that place torn down.”

Dinner was tense after that. Miguel was guiltily relieved when Ernesto shuffled off to bed. 

~

While Miguel situated himself in his new room, the wind picked up outside. It scrabbled at his windows, moaning as though begging to be let in. He knew what his grandmother would say. “Never open your window to a stranger who knocks at night.”

He smiled at the thought as he wriggled into his nightclothes. He had only just sat on the bed when a strange sound caught his ear. There was the wind, of course. The clicks and scratches of debris hitting the wall and window, the groaning walls. But there was another, softer sound underneath. Rhythmic, hollow, and very close. Not the wind, not the house. Something, he realized, inside the room. He held his breath and listened. 

It was breathing. Dry and hoarse, painful sounding breaths. So close. He could almost feel the air against his ear. 

Miguel leapt from the bed and was out in the hallway before he remembered to breathe himself. He stared into his room, blood as loud in his ears as the gale outside. There was no one else there.

“What did you expect?” he asked himself crossly. “It’s an old house. It makes noises.”

That sounded too much like something out of a horror movie for comfort. 

“There’s nothing there,” he said firmly and walked back into the room. The sound was gone.

“There’s nothing here,” he said again, just to be sure.

And for the rest of the night, there wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! That chapter seemed to take forever! It's still not quite polished, but I didn't want to make you guys wait anymore. The ooky-spooky stuff has finally begun, and believe me when I say that this party is just getting started >:D  
> Please let me know how you like it so far!


	4. Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel discovers that there is something very strange going on.

Time passed slowly at the hacienda. For Miguel, every day warped and blurred into the other, very much like the one before. Wake up Ernesto, feed Ernesto, entertain Ernesto, remind Ernesto that his name is not Héctor. Then Ernesto’s lunch, then Ernesto’s siesta, then Ernesto’s supper. And then night would fall, heralded by the somber toll of the chapel bell. 

Had it not been for the bell, Miguel didn’t think he would have even noticed the rising and setting sun. Every night, a wind kicked up from the west and rocked the ruined chapel, churning up the remains of a stagnant day.

It struck him nearly two weeks into his stay that he had not set foot outside in days. He wasn’t sure how many. While de la Cruz slept, Miguel slipped out into the garden. The sun shone with a fierce, roaring heat, and Miguel felt like a blind cave fish venturing into the world for the first time. He knew that staying inside so long couldn’t be healthy.

His tía Elena often took Mamá Coco for strolls around town. Miguel wondered if he could convince his employer to wander about the orchards for an afternoon, for his health if nothing else. Although, de la Cruz never seemed very interested in anything that happened outside the walls of the old house. He was much too occupied reminiscing. As a child, Miguel never would have guessed that he would one day be tired of hearing Ernesto de la Cruz regale him with stories about the golden days. 

How strange that simply standing outside could feel like a crime. He should go back in, in case Ernesto needed him. 

~

The electrician arrived on Wednesday, while de la Cruz was out. He poked around the fuse boxes and peered behind a few of the buzzers and declared that nothing was wrong. 

“Something has to be wrong,” Miguel insisted, “They keep going off! There has to be, I don’t know, a crossed wire or something.”

“What are you suddenly, an inspector?” the older man grouched. His name badge said, enigmatically, “Chicharrón.” He was about a third Miguel’s height, but what little there was of him was stuffed with fury. 

“You asked me to look, I looked, I don’t see anything. Call the company that installed it if you’re having issues.”

“I did, but,” but they could only come by on Mondays and Tuesdays, “They weren’t any help.”

Chicharrón snorted, “Then switch to someone else. This is the third time I’ve had to haul my van up here, and I don’t care how rich the old goat is, there won’t be a fourth!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Miguel called, catching him as he tried to storm past, “The third time? This has happened before?”

Chicharrón frowned and eyed Miguel up and down, “Yeah. Electrical problems are what you might call a fixture around here. Your boss didn’t tell you? That pretty little… uh, Señorita Rivera called me the first time. Then the redhead. Now you. Figured someone would have mentioned it when you signed up.”

“I didn’t exactly sign up,” Miguel said, “And Rosa never said anything. The redhead, who called you before? Do you remember what the problem was? Or her name?”

“Her name, I don’t remember. You’ll have to ask someone else. The problem was the same thing. Lights flickering, buzzers turning on, phones ringing, you know.”

Miguel shivered with foreboding, “Yeah, the lights and phones haven’t been doing anything.”

“Welp.” Chicharrón shrugged as he stepped out the door, “There’s time for that, later, I suppose.”

~

Miguel had taken to wandering the house at night when he couldn’t sleep, which was often. Just as he was about to dip down into a place of dreaming, he would be startled awake by shrill shouting, and the echoing crack of a guitar being smashed. Then he’d start wondering what he was going to do when Rosa found someone permanent and more qualified to stay on at the hacienda. And then he’d get up and walk.

It was one of these moonlight excursions that he picked up a faint, sweet, tune wafting down the corridor. Miguel followed and listened.

Lively guitar music was echoing from the music room. It was a song he knew very well, one of the first one he’d learned to play himself; El Mundo es Mi Familia. 

He was caught somewhere between delight and consternation. His charge should have been asleep at such a late hour, but the fact was that he was hearing Ernesto de la Cruz, the greatest musician of all time, playing in person. Late or not, it was nothing short of marvelous. 

He crept forward, hoping to catch a peek, but just as he reached the open doorway, the music cut off. The abrupt silence almost echoed. Miguel froze guiltily. Sure enough, Ernesto called from within, “Héctor?”

Miguel slid into the room, grinning sheepishly. “Hola, Señor De la Cruz,” he said, feeling like he’d been caught playing music by his abuela. Ernesto watched him with a bemused frown, and Miguel realized with a start that he didn’t have a guitar. Gnarled, arthritic hands clutched at the armrests of his chair. Now that he thought about it, Miguel wasn’t certain that those twisted old hands could play music at all, let alone the song he’d just heard. 

“Héctor,” Ernesto said, sounding very small, “Why did you stop?”

“Señor,” Miguel said, “Was there someone in here with you?”

“Don’t stop, Héctor. Por favor, play. Play more.”

“I don’t think I should. Please, was there someone here? Where are they?” He paced the length of the room while Ernesto watched, checking behind furniture and even in some of the cabinets. There was only one door, and Miguel had been right next to it. No one could have left the room without passing him, and yet his search yielded nothing. He and 

Ernesto were completely alone. 

“You can play a different song if you want,” Ernesto was begging, “But please, just a little more.”

Miguel gave up on his search and regarded his employer. He didn’t know what to make of any of it, but Ernesto was becoming increasingly agitated.

“I’m sorry, Héctor. Didn’t I say I was sorry? I don’t know what you want. What do you think I can do?”

The old man tried to push himself out of his chair on quivering arms, expression screwed up. Miguel wasn’t sure if it was sorrow or anger, but it was nonetheless alarming.

“Cálmese!” he cried, gently nudging Ernesto back into his seat, “Cálmese, señor. I’ll play something for you, just calm down.”

Ernesto subsided, closing his eyes and sighing. Miguel reached for the grinning guitar, hesitated, then took it down. 

He was holding it. The guitar. The skull guitar in every movie, on every album cover. Not even the bizarre music and his employer’s strange behavior could dent the warmth rising in Miguel’s chest. He took a breath and managed to beat down his excitement. Now was not the time. 

With Ernesto dozing peacefully in the only chair, Miguel sat on the counter and picked up the threads of an interrupted song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm more used to writing short stories than multi-chapter ones, and I think it shows. The rest of the story is mostly written already, with a few stitches needed here and there, so updates should be coming more frequently after this. The "scary stuff" is going to amp up with each chapter until the climax, but it shouldn't get too intense at any point. Let's just say that being nice isn't at the top of Hector's to do list at the moment.


	5. Footsteps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel begins to wonder.

Rosa stopped by the next Wednesday for lunch. She was often on the property itself, but Miguel rarely saw her. He also couldn’t help but notice that everyone timed their visits in such a way that they never had to see Ernesto. Which wasn’t totally fair. The house was certainly odd, and weird things did occasionally happen, but Ernesto himself wasn’t a bad guy.

His cousin’s arrival, though, did give him the opportunity to ask a few questions.

“Rosa,” Miguel began over sandwiches, “This might seem like a weird question, but, uh, did anyone named Héctor ever live here? In this house?”

His cousin raised a brow, “‘Héctor?’” she repeated, “No, I don’t think so. The house is nearly two hundred years old, so I guess it’s possible, but there’s no record of anyone with that name. The place belonged to the de la Vegas, then the Posadas, then the Sanchezes. And now to Señor de la Cruz. None of them were named Héctor. Why?”

“It’s just,” Miguel wasn’t sure where to take this, “Señor de la Cruz has been talking about someone named Héctor, and I can’t figure out if they were old friends or if, um, I don’t know.”

“Or if he used to live in the house? Like, you think he’s a ghost?” Her tone was saturated with profound disapproval.

Miguel shrugged, “I don’t know. Some weird stuff has been happening.”

“Look, Miguel,” Rosa said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Old buildings like this, they can feel full, even when they’re empty. It’s a little isolated, and your only consistent company is an old man who spends half of his time decades in the past. I understand that it can be disorienting. But I have to know that you are up for this. The last thing I need is you flaking out on me, too.”

Something about what she’d said caught in Miguel’s mind.

“‘Too?’” he asked, “What does that mean? When have I ever flaked out on anything?”

Rosa huffed, “That’s not what I,” she snapped her mouth shut. “Never mind. Just tell me, and tell me honestly, can you look after Ernesto for just a little while longer?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t bother him with ghost stories?”

“No, but what if he mentions it first?”

“Remember that he is old and confused. You know how Mamá Coco can be? Don’t encourage him if he gets stuck on something, okay?”

“Sí, okay. No more ghost stuff. But Héctor, whoever he was, seems important to Señor de la Cruz. Do you have any idea who he was?”  

Rosa shrugged, “I don’t. Señor de la Cruz never mentioned him to me, and none of the other caretakers have brought it up.”

Miguel swirled his Coke in its glass, thinking. “Who was the caretaker before me? Señor de la Cruz said something about her a while back.”

“Ceci?” Rosa asked sharply, “What about her?”

Her abrupt anger startled Miguel. He’d often seen her irritated, but this was colder. “Nothing,” he said automatically, “Just that, uh, there were some electrical issues? She called an electrician?”

“Yes there were, and yes she did. Is that all?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They sat in stiff silence, neither touching their food.

“So,” Miguel said when the quiet grew too heavy, “Have they… said anything?”

All Rosa’s anger evaporated like mist. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Oh yeah,” she said grimly, “They’ve said a lot.”

“How is everyone?”

“Mamá Coco is asking about her father again.”

That was all the answer Miguel needed.

“Do they know where I am?”

“Of course not.”

“Gracias, Rosa.”

“Don’t mention it. Like, ever.”

They fell again into silence. Rosa glanced at her watch and stood, stretching. “Time for me to go. I need to figure out how to convince the historical society to rebuild the chapel. Trying to renovate it is like trying to resuscitate a skeleton, and thousand times more expensive. Here,” she slipped a notepad from her purse and scribbled on it, “This is Ceci’s phone number. You can call her, if you want, but take what she says with a grain of salt, okay? She’s a little,” she wiggled her hand, “high-strung.”

Miguel took the paper and grinned at his cousin, “Gracias, Rosa,” he said again.

“This one,” Rosa said as she left, “You really, really shouldn’t mention.”

 

~

 

Ceci didn’t answer the first three times that Miguel called. He didn’t leave any messages, afraid that she would call back and de la Cruz would answer.

He was comforted by the relative quiet that followed his talk with Rosa. Interacting with other people and taking walks in the garden seemed to be doing him good. He chatted with the security officer who watched the gates during the day (Pedro) and the one who dropped off packages after inspecting them (Salvador). He had nearly reached the comforting conclusion that he was blowing things way out of proportion. The buzzers could have just been malfunctioning, whatever Chicharrón claimed. He could have imagined the guitar music, and everything else. In the warm light of day, every eerie occurrence had a simple and logical explanation.

Three days after lunch with Rosa, Miguel was in his room, trying vainly to sleep. The bell had not rung that night, and its absence set him on edge. A breath was trapped in his chest, waiting for the plunge. He imagined his grandmother’s voice crackling, “If whatever rings the bell isn’t in the chapel, then where is it?”

A buzzer shrieked in the darkness. Miguel rocketed out of bed and landed in a heap on the floor before he could right himself and scramble into the hallway. It was the tone for Ernesto’s room.

Heart in his mouth, Miguel hurtled down the stairs. He stumbled to stop outside the closed bedroom door and was reaching for the doorknob when it was flung open from the other side.

“Miguel!” Ernesto’s harsh whisper cracked the silent air, “Get in!”

With astonishing vigor, he seized Miguel by the arm and dragged him into the dark room. Once inside, Ernesto rammed his weight against the door and held it closed, panting and trembling. “Did he see us?” He demanded wildly, “No, no, we would know if he had.”

“Who?” Miguel asked, alarmed, “Is someone out there?”

But Ernesto pressed a withered finger to his lips, eyes wide. Miguel relented and waited for something to happen or for his employer’s mood to pass. The silence stretched until it was taut as a guitar string, fit to snap. Miguel was about suggest checking the hallway when a soft tap echoed on the other side of the door.

It was followed by an unsteady hiss, like something dragging on the floor. The sounds continued in a rhythm. _Tap, hiss. Tap, hiss_. To Miguel, the noises sounded horribly like footsteps. Slow, limping footsteps, meandering down the hall and toward the bedroom.

 _Tap, hiss. Tap, hiss._ They were getting closer.

Ernesto had gone still, his expression a rictus of terror. Each breath was a rattling wheeze that fluttered his chest like a broken accordion.

“Señor,” Miguel whispered, “It’s alright! Come over here.”

He guided the obliging old man to the farthest corner of the room. “Stay here,” he commanded, trying to sound more confident than he was. On his way back to the door, he snatched up the nearest available weapon (a brass statuette of four chihuahuas balancing on each other’s heads) and hoisted it like a baseball bat. 

The intruder had nearly reached the bedroom. With a final _tap, hiss_ , and short scuff, they stopped. Whoever it was, they were standing just on the other side of the door.

Miguel adjusted and readjusted his grip.  He took a breath and let it out. He glanced back at Ernesto, who was still watching in frozen horror. He looked back toward the door. The person outside, whether a burglar, an obsessed fan, or a hired hand with staggeringly bad timing, made no further sound.

 Okay, Miguel told himself, enough stalling. Showtime.

He reached out and threw open the door, shouting a sharp _“Hey!”_

It crashed against the wall, obscenely loud, and wobbled on its hinges while Miguel leapt from the room, brandishing his makeshift club.

The hallway was empty. Still holding the statue aloft, Miguel checked around, peeking through darkened doorways until he was satisfied that there was no one in the immediate vicinity.

“It’s safe, Señor,” he called as he made his way back, “There’s no one here. It must have been… the wind?” He was almost positive that it couldn’t have been the wind, but Ernesto didn’t need to know that.

The door remained open, where he’d left it. But just as he’d reached the doorway and was about to join Ernesto inside, it jumped. Without any visible cause, it slammed shut with rattling force, making the wall groan.

“ _Ernesto!”_ Miguel screamed, wrenching at the doorknob, “What’s wrong?”

It wouldn’t open. Ernesto remained silent, there was no sound to indicate what could be going on inside the room. Miguel gasped with fear, and took a minute to get himself together. There couldn’t be anyone in there except Ernesto. He recalled what Rosa had told him the very first day he’d arrived. _“He scares himself.”_ What Miguel had to do was keep a level head and calmly handle the situation.

“Señor,” he tried again, “Please unlock the door. I need to see that you’re okay. Can you open the door?”

No answer.

“I need to come inside, Señor. Please open the door. Can you hear me? Please?” He could feel his voice getting higher. His hands began to shake. “I really, really, really, need this door to open.”

 The mechanism beneath his hand clicked. He pushed against the door and swung it open to find the room still dark and Ernesto standing right where he’d left him, gaping at Miguel in stunned horror.

“Héctor!” he cried, pressing himself back into the wall, “Please!”

Miguel raised his hands placatingly, “It’s fine,” he soothed, “It’s just me. There’s no one else here. You’re fine.”

“Miguel,” Ernesto said, relaxing, “Oh, it’s only you.”

Miguel smiled, relief filling him like warm water, and repeated, “There’s no one else here.”

Once Ernesto was settled and no longer looked to be in danger of a heart attack, Miguel slipped into the sala and picked up the phone. The situation had gone beyond not bothering de la Cruz with ghost stories. He needed to talk to Ceci.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that took longer than I was expecting. Sorry for the wait, I know I promised faster updates, but life had other ideas. I hope this chapter makes up for it! More of the mystery is revealed!


	6. In The Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel asks the wrong questions.

There was something in the wall. Miguel crouched against the wall, listening.  Feeble scratching rasped on the other side. Keeping on ear on the sound, he crept down the hall and circled into the trophy room. It was more of a glorified closet that happened to be lined with shelves of awards than anything else, but Ernesto had seemed pleased with it. Miguel sometimes wondered why such a showboat would have hidden his trophies away in a small space. In the end, it was just one on a list of eccentricities.

The sound had evolved into faint tapping. Miguel followed it to a locked door at the end of the room. This was the storage closet, and he had never been inside. If the dusty grime on the doorframe was any indication, no one had in a long time.

He rattled the doorknob, but instead of quieting, the scrabbling grew almost frantic. Miguel rolled his eyes. An infestation was just what he needed. Now he had to hire an exterminator on top of everything else.

“Señor de le Cruz?” he called as he made his way to the study, “Do you have a key for the storage room?”

Ernesto sat at his desk, pen poised above a ledger, and asked, “Do I have what?”

“A key,” Miguel repeated, “For the storage room.”

The pen was carefully put down. “Which one?”

“The trophy room. I think rats have gotten in or something. I just heard them crawling around in there.”

“I see.” Ernesto tapped absently at the desk, never once looking up at Miguel, “No. I don’t know where the key could be. It’s been gone for a while. Since I came here, in fact. You just let me worry about the rats, eh? I will handle it.”

“Uh, what? Isn’t that kind of my job?”

Ernesto chuckled, “Not at all, my boy. I can’t leave running this house to you alone, now can I? I am quite capable of taking care of pests. Was that all you wanted?”

“Oh,” being so neatly dismissed stung, “Yeah, I guess.”

 

~

 

Ceci called back the next Wednesday. Miguel was beginning to feel like time froze for the rest of the week, and only moved forward again for a few hours that one day. Like Ernesto was keeping the estate imprisoned in time. Which was an uncharitable thought to have about his employer.

“Sorry to make you wait so long,” she chattered, rapid-fire, over the line, “I’ve got to dress forty dancers by tomorrow. You said you worked for de la Cruz?”

“Yes, I’m sort of looking after him. I know this going to seem like a weird question, but I need to know why you left.”

“Ah ha,” she said, “Which one is giving you more trouble, de la Cruz or the ghost?”

Miguel glanced around the room and hunched excitedly over the receiver. “Ghost?” he repeated softly, as though there were anyone in the house to overhear.

“Yup,” Ceci replied, popping the word, “Don’t try to tell me you haven’t noticed, honey.”

“No, yeah. I, uh, noticed.”

“That place, I tell you. I had priests, psychics, even a bruja over there! That spirit, though. Like trying to catch smoke. One of the psychics said that it was in the very walls and couldn’t be forced out. That house is bad, honey. It doesn’t want people.”

Miguel felt a cold chill drip down his back. The temperature dropped. He checked again for eavesdroppers and asked, “What exactly happened that made you leave?”  

“It was combination of things. But the last straw came when I heard the scratching in the walls.”

“Scratching?” Miguel squeaked. He stood and walked as far as the cord would allow. He peered down the hall in the direction of the trophy room. Naturally, there was nothing to see.

“Mm-hmm. It started in my bedroom. I thought it was mice. I followed the sound to the other side of the house. It stopped inside the storage closet, but the door was locked. I went back to my room to get the master key, but de la Cruz was waiting for me. I don’t know what woke him up, but he was in a temper! He demanded to know why I was snooping about, and what I thought I was going to find. He was crazy! I had never seen him like that. He took the keys, said I couldn’t be trusted with them, and stormed off. With him it was one thing after another. My cooking was no good, I never cleaned up enough, I was dull company. All this I took. But calling me a thief was too much. I began to pack my things to leave in the morning. And do you know what happened next?”

“What?” Miguel urged.

“The bell in the old chapel started ringing. The entire time I was at that damned house, the thing never made a sound, but that night, it was as loud as thunder. And angry. I could feel it. I did not make one move while it was going. When it finally stopped, I tried to keep packing, and can you guess what happened then?”

“No,” Miguel said, exasperated, “I really can’t.”

“De la Cruz started shouting. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he was furious! I thought he was just going loco, but then I heard another voice answer him, just as loud. So naturally, I think, someone has broken in! I ran to where the voices were coming from, the music room, and I hear the other voice screaming. I’m not sure, but I think it was saying, ‘go home,’ or something like that. I burst into the room, and what do you think I find?”

Miguel didn’t have to answer this time before she trilled, “No one! No one but de la Cruz, standing all alone in the room, shouting at his old guitar. That was that. I didn’t wait any longer. I got my things and told Pedro drive me to a hotel. I called Señorita Rivera on my way out. I think she had an aneurism when I told her I was leaving. But I wasn’t spending one more minute in that place.”

  Miguel waited a moment then said, “Is that all?”

“Is that all?” Ceci repeated, “ _Is that all?_ That was all I needed! You think you could just sit tight through all that and keep living in that place?”

Miguel decided that saying he pretty much had wouldn’t endear him to her. It seemed that talking to Ceci hadn’t yielded any new clues. Except…

“Wait,” he interrupted Ceci’s tirade, “You said something about a master key. One that could open the storage room?”

“Sí, I did.”

“Señor de la Cruz said that there was no key to that door. He said it had been lost for ages.”

“Oh, of course, if _Se_ _ñor_ de la Cruz says something, then it must be true!”

Miguel didn’t like where this was going. A bleak suspicion was growing in his mind, and he didn’t want to feed it. “Thanks for getting back to me,” he said, “I should go now.”

“Of course. You sound far too nice to be stuck in that awful house. You should leave, honey, before something worse than voices happens. Let me know if,” her voice grew faint, as if she had turned away from the phone, “Eh? Marco? _What do you mean he’s been arrested?_ He’d better not have lost that costume! _”_

“Adios,” Miguel said as he quickly put down the receiver.

A foggy silence clung to the room and made him shiver. Ernesto must have known more than he was letting on, and whatever it was, he was keeping it secret. Miguel would never had imagined blithe, cheerful, Ernesto de la Cruz behaving like that. And yet the story didn’t surprise him in the least.

Asking his employer about any of this would do no good if he’d already lied about it. There was only one way to be sure, and that was to find the key and see what was inside that room.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan on making this chapter so short, but this seemed like a good spot to leave it for now. The next one will probably be much longer.


	7. Keys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel's search nears its end.

Miguel couldn’t possibly have waited another week to find the key. After he wasn’t sure how long spent wandering the old house, he finally had something to do! Something exciting! And maybe a little terrifying, but he shouldn’t be particular.

After all, this ghost thing seemed straightforward after his talk with Ceci. Whoever the ghost was, presumably Héctor, he wanted someone to look inside the storage room. And Ernesto, for his part, did not. Ernesto knew about the ghost, but seemed as eager to cover it up as Rosa. His cousin, Miguel could understand. She had a professional interest in keeping the staff in the dark (though would it have killed her to tell her own family about it?). Ernesto’s motives weren’t as clear. Of course, Miguel couldn’t be sure how much of the haunting his employer was aware of.

Whatever the case, Miguel couldn’t let de la Cruz find out about what he’d learned. He couldn’t risk being fired.  So that left creeping about the house in the dead of night.

His plan hit a snag, however, when he tried to slip out of his room that night. The doorknob turned and rattled, but the door would not open. He had been locked in.

He didn’t dare call for help. There was only de la Cruz on the entire estate, not counting the security guards at the gates, which seemed farther away than the moon in the cramped darkness of Miguel’s room. “Héctor?” he tried calling softly, “Um. Hi? I’m pretty sure you want to me look in the storage room, and I can’t do that without the key, and the key is kind of hidden, and I need to look for it. Like now. So if you could, um. Open the door?”

He didn’t really expect a response, so he wasn’t disappointed when the lock failed to magically disengage. He halfheartedly tugged at the window, but it held fast, stuck to its casing. Breaking the glass was hardly and option, so Miguel sat on the bed and thought.

The only two ways of out of the room were barred. The ghost could have done it, but the more likely culprit was Ernesto. He had the master key, after all, and was clearly hiding something. Miguel wasn’t sure when or if de la Cruz had learned of his conversation with Ceci. The old man could have locked him in without Miguel noticing. Perhaps he had the very night after Miguel had asked about the rats in the trophy room. Ernesto was usually awake earlier than him. It would be a simple matter to get up before Miguel and quietly unlock the door.

_He was tired._

He couldn’t possibly go to bed, knowing that he was trapped, locked in by someone who almost literally held his life in his hands.

_He hadn’t been sleeping the past few days. He should sleep._

If Ernesto became too suspicious and fired him, where could he go? He clearly couldn’t search for the key at night. Looking during the day may be too risky. If Ernesto rose early from his siesta, or, Miguel thought with a writhing dread, merely pretended to sleep so he could catch Miguel snooping, it would be all over.

_It was time to sleep._

Miguel realized he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

_Go to sleep, mijo._

His last waking thought was the vague sensation that his father was standing beside his bed.

 

~

 

Miguel could barely stand being in the same room with Ernesto anymore. Night and siesta time were no longer safe. He was never alone, not really. Every moment was heavy with his employer’s smothering gaze. If he made any move to search, if he lifted his head to listen to the tolling bell at sunset, de la Cruz would swoop over him like a falcon, eyes sharp and cold. Though it was never spoken, a threat wavered like loose cobweb above them.           

De la Cruz was truly keeping the days still. Every morning just as cold, every afternoon just as hot. The same meals, the same prescriptions, the same time every day. The same tired stories.

Miguel wandered into the parlor to find de la Cruz watching on of his own movies for what must have been the thousandth time. This particular evening it was _El Camino A Casa_.

_“This calls for a toast! To our friendship, ha ha! I would move Heaven and Earth for you, mi amigo!”_

“You know,” Ernesto said mildly as furniture crashed on screen, “I did all my own stunts.”

Though the sun hadn’t quite begun to set, the chapel bell roared like thunder.

 

~

 

Wednesday arrived, and Miguel watched Ernesto’s car from the patio until he was sure it was gone. He took a breath of fresh air and felt truly awake for the first time in days. Time had begun to move again, and he wasn’t about to waste a second.

 First, he searched the study, carefully replacing every object he moved. Then he checked every closet, even the linen cabinet. He even crept into Ernesto’s bedroom and peered gingerly into drawers and beneath the bed. Nothing.

The last place he could think to look was the utility shed. It sat in the courtyard, tastefully covered with vining plants so that it would passably resemble a pergola gone rogue. The shed was locked, but the head gardener, Gustavo, appeared just when Miguel was starting to get desperate.

“You mind if I get in there, man?” Gustavo griped, “Your cousin’s gonna have a fit if I don’t get these hedges done.”

“Oh, sure,” Miguel said as he edged away from the door he’d been clawing at and tried to pretend he hadn’t been clawing at it.

He must not have succeeded, because Gustavo eyed him warily before saying, “You, uh, want something in there, buddy?”

“Oh! Yes,” Miguel stuttered. “I do. Um. What I need. I need hedge trimmers. Like you. Also.”

“Right,” Gustavo answered, stretching the word. “Okay. Why not?”

He snapped a ring of keys from his belt and opened the door. Miguel waited while Gustavo braved the labyrinthine tangle of shovels, blades, and weed killer. He emerged bearing two sets of hedge trimmers. He kept the largest for himself, and handed Miguel the others at full arm’s length as though he were contagious.

“Thanks,” Miguel told the trimmers, “Could you do me another favor?”

“What kind of favor?”

“Those keys of yours. They wouldn’t happen to open any of the doors inside, would they?”

“Yes,” Gustavo said slowly, “They would. Why?”

“How many of the doors would they open?”

“All of them, I think? Your cousin issues them to the other managers on the property. Why?”

Miguel frowned. “She didn’t issue any to me.”

“Well no,” Gustavo said, bemused, “Señor de la Cruz was supposed to.”

Miguel shrugged in a way that he hoped was disarming, “I guess he forgot. Could I borrow yours?”

“No way, man!” Gustavo yelped, “Your cousin would kill me!”

“No she won’t,” Miguel reassured, “I’ll just tell her I needed them. She can’t be mad about that. She should have made sure I had my own set, anyway. Right?”

“I guess,” the gardener mumbled, “Okay. I don’t need them right now, anyway. But hang them up in the gate house when you’re done!”

“I will absolutely do that,” Miguel said, beaming as he accepted the keys.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long! Time completely ran away from me! We're getting near the end now, and the final chapters were the first ones I wrote. Just a few details left to straighten out, and I may post the rest of the story at once. I had originally planned for more "spooky" stuff, but the scenes didn't quite mesh with the rest of the narrative, and one of them seemed downright mean, so i cut them out. I might add some bonus chapters at the end if you guys are interested.


	8. Behind the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel finds answers.

Miguel was almost disappointed when he opened the door and found only an innocuous stack of boxes and a filing cabinet. The cabinet proved disappointing, its drawers rattling with old film reels, what Miguel recognized as props from old De la Cruz movies, old corsages, and bundles of photos from premiers and parties. The boxes were helpfully labeled, most of them containing old suits and costumes, others, drafts of scripts. Once upon a time, Miguel might have been over the moon to be surrounded by his idol’s mementos, but now he could only muster a vague irritation that none of the room’s contents were going to tell him anything about the mysterious Héctor.

In a fit of pique, he gave the wall beside the cabinet a sharp kick, ready to throw his hands in the air and storm out, but was brought up short by an incongruous echo. Anticipation ignited in his gut and he crouched by the wall, hardly breathing. He tapped the spot he’d kicked, then further out and up. As soon as he was sure, he surged to his feet. The wall was hollow.

   Not the whole wall, he soon discovered. Instead of an entire secret room, there appeared to be a sealed crawlspace, which wasn’t quite as exciting, but better than nothing. The problem was how to access it. He figured that the best way to begin was to move the filing cabinet.

He braced his shoulder against it and pushed, cringing at the grinding squeal it made.   Then he knelt and ran his hands along the wallpaper, feeling the crease of a small, hidden door. He didn’t want to leave his discovery to find a knife. He was somehow afraid that if he looked away, the hidden door would vanish, and he would be left without answers. He ran the teeth of the door’s key along the crease in the paper until it tore.

Once he had freed the hidden door, he paused. A creeping dread was building in the back of his throat. What would he find? _Who_ would he find? For the first time, the possibility that Héctor’s body might actually be behind the wall struck him, and he shuddered. Was he really ready to do this?

“Ready or not,” he murmured to himself, and maybe to Héctor, “Here I come.”

 

~

 

He did not, in fact, find the remains of a human body inside the wall. Instead, he found a nondescript trunk and a dingy suitcase.

He scooted into the dark space, squinting at his finds, and decided to reach first for the suitcase. It was large, almost the size of the case that Rosa took to airports for weeks long trips. The leather was tattered and pock-marked, the hinges rusted. It must have been very old. But stranger than its size and obvious age, was the discovery that a thin chain had been wound around it and fastened with a small padlock. He tugged at the chain and the clasp, but the suitcase refused to be opened. He felt a brief pang for the hedge clippers he’d stuffed under his mattress for lack of a better place to hide them, but couldn’t tear himself away from his discovery to fetch them.

Thwarted, he turned to the trunk. There was nothing keeping him from opening it, so he tugged it out of the crawlspace and into the room to have a look. Inside he found a worn leather notebook and a packet of letters bound together with twine. The spine of the notebook cracked as he opened it. Miguel flipped through a few pages and stopped in roughly the middle of the book, a strange tightness settling in his chest. “ _Recuérdame”_ was written there in faded pencil.

This had to be Ernesto’s old song book. The song on the page must have been a first draft. _This_ piece was meant to be sung simply, tenderly, the book said. The final product was decidedly not. And yet….

Miguel didn’t like where his thoughts were going, but he couldn’t hold them back. The writing in the book was not Ernesto’s. It was smaller, tighter. Not even similar. The song had the same lyrics, the same basic notes, but felt entirely different. A different voice, a different hand. But, whispered a treacherous voice in his mind, maybe the same guitar?

Without really wanting to know, Miguel checked the inside cover. There was the name, scrawled right onto the cloth. Héctor Rivera.

Rivera. _Rivera._ Something cold was taking shape in Miguel’s mind. Of course, it was a common name. This whole thing could just be a coincidence, however uncanny. His great grandfather, the nameless Rivera, had disappeared around the time that Ernesto’s career had taken off. His ancestor had been a musician, and so too had been Héctor. Very strange, but not damning.

 Then there was the guitar. Ernesto’s signature white guitar in a family photo taken before de la Cruz became a household name. That was harder to wave away. The letters, surely would provide answers.

He slipped the first envelope free of the twine and flipped it over. The return address meant nothing to him, but the recipient’s leapt from the paper. It was his address. He pushed away the sinking in his chest. Orders for shoes were sent there every day. There was no date on the envelope. This mysterious musician who had the same last name and who knew the man who currently had Miguel’s great grandfather’s guitar could have just been ordering shoes. Or something.

It was still sealed, so Miguel ripped it open and read the letter inside.

_“Díosa,”_ it began, “ _every moment away from you is like a lifetime. The tour is going well. Ernesto is confident that we’ll make it big soon. He just hasn’t said how soon. However things turn out, I will be back before Coco’s birthday. Already four years old! She must stop growing so quickly or soon she will be taller than her Papá!”_

“Well,” Miguel told the suitcase, “That’s it, I guess.” Héctor Rivera was without a doubt Miguel’s missing ancestor.

The next letter was addressed to Coco herself. “ _I love you with all of my heart_ ,” it said, “ _I will be home very soon. I miss you so much. I sing our song every night, and I know that you are singing it too, that we are singing together. No matter how far apart we are, our song will keep us together.”_

In every letter to Coco, along with the declarations of love and promises to be home before she knew it, were little poems, a line or two at a time. Miguel recognized every single one of them as lyrics in de la Cruz’s songs, written in the same handwriting as in the notebook.

The rest of the letters, nearly twenty all told, were the same. Interspersed with familiar lyrics and vague concerns about Ernesto’s darkening mood, were variations of, “ _Things are going well_ ,” and “ _How are you?_ ” and “ _I miss you_ ,” and finally, “ _I’m coming home_.”

The last letter, sent from Mexico City and dated in December 1921, ended with, _“I can’t wait to see you again. I’m leaving on the next train tomorrow.  Ernesto will try to stop me. He has been,”_ the next words were written over a dark smudge, “ _a little down. But I know he will understand._ _Wait for me, amor, I will be home soon.”_

It was signed, _“Yours forever, Héctor.”_

Miguel felt his throat closing up. He turned away from the delicate paper, not wanting to stain it, and took deep breaths, blinking.

Rivera Zapatería had been founded at the same time the letter had been written. Mamá Coco had never gotten any of these letters. Mamá Imelda lived the rest of her life thinking that her husband had abandoned her. That he had never once thought of her or their daughter again, never tried to reach them.

De la Cruz must have taken the letters. Hidden them, while Héctor thought they were being delivered. And why would he have done that unless he’d known the whole time that Coco’s father was never coming home? Letters arriving and then suddenly stopping would have been suspicious, especially since Héctor had been writing every few days. But if he’d never written? If he’d just left to find fame? That was a different story. Ernesto must have been planning to take the songs. He must have meant, the whole time he was travelling with his friend, to ensure Héctor vanished.

Where was the body? Miguel wondered. The timing of Héctor’s disappearance, the stolen letters and songs, and the apparently stolen guitar were damning enough by themselves. Yet the one piece of evidence that would prove what had happened beyond any doubt was still missing. Probably moldering in unmarked grave outside Mexico City.

He was about to rearrange the letters and replace them in the trunk. He halted when he noticed a scrap of paper left. He scooped it up and for a heart-stopping moment thought that it was a black and white photo of himself. But no, he realized. As uncanny as the similarities were, this was clearly a different person. A hawk nose, narrower eyes, maybe the chin was too sharp. The man was grinning crookedly, a little shy but clearly happy. There was nothing written on it, front or back, but Miguel didn’t need to be told who it was.

A new feeling was blooming in his chest, something that bled through his thoughts like too much ink on paper. It crushed the air from his lungs and poured liquid fire in his veins. He was _furious._

How could he possibly pretend that nothing had happened? How could he make dinner for the man who had ripped his abuela’s father away from her? The thought of eating with him, of smiling and talking as though everything were normal made him sick. Smiling and pretending, as no doubt Ernesto had done with Héctor for months before he decided to end the game.

He could go to the police. He _should,_ that was probably what Héctor wanted. But if he did, the letters, the notebook, and the suitcase would be taken away as evidence. They might never reach the rest of the family. Mamá Coco might never see them. He had to make sure she got her letters, and if there was any way it could be done, he had to find out what had happened to Héctor’s body.

He caught sight of the suitcase and wondered. But no, he realized. Héctor’s body couldn’t be in there. The letters stopped in 1921. That would have meant that Ernesto had carried around a corpse for years before moving into the hacienda. Or at the very least that he had hidden and later retrieved it, just so he could brick it up in his own house. It was too ghoulish, too risky.

There had to be something else in there, and Miguel was dying to know what. He couldn’t open it by himself. He’d need the hedge trimmers in his room. He picked up the ring of keys from where he’d left them on the floor.

It was too late to do anything about it that day. De la Cruz would be back soon. He would have to be patient. He couldn’t let his employer suspect he’d discovered any of this. But when the time came, he promised himself, he’d find out what else the old man could be hiding.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Another chapter so soon?? Could it be that I've finally stopped procrastinating?? For now, anyway. We're getting into the home stretch! Two or three more chapters and then we're done. Gosh, I feel like I only just started the story and now it's nearly over D: Let me know what you guys think!


	9. The Suitcase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel meets Hector.

“You have been very quiet, Miguel. Whatever is the matter?”

Miguel managed not to slam the plate on the table through sheer force of will.

“Have I?” he said thinly, “I didn’t think I was being quiet.”

“I am very concerned, my boy, this is unlike you,” Ernesto watched him over the rim of his glass with a faint smile. “Perhaps you need a vacation?”

“Vacation?” Miguel repeated blankly.

“Of course. You have been stuck here too long, I can see that. You need to get out for a good long while. Enjoy your youth while you can.”

Miguel felt like he’d been put under a spotlight. Ernesto must have some idea of what Miguel had discovered. What could he do? He needed to stay long enough to open the suitcase, at the very least. He shivered with sudden fear. It was as though a cold breeze had wafted against his neck. _Be careful._

“Sí,” he said slowly, “I could use some time off, I guess. Of course, I can’t go anywhere until Rosa finds someone to take over. That’s kind of why I’m here, you know? But I think she could find a temporary replacement in a week or so.”

“So long?” Ernesto asked, “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t need to,” Miguel said pleasantly, placing a covered dish on the table, “It’s no problem. Don’t even worry about it.”

“I certainly won’t.”

Miguel noticed that Ernesto didn’t ask how long he was going to be away. He supposed they both knew. “Do you mind if I don’t eat with you tonight? I have to call Rosa.”

“Of course not, my boy. But do not forget to feed yourself, eh? You never know when you might need your strength.”

“Yeah,” Miguel replied, “I guess not.” The words spoken were polite enough, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d just had an argument.

  He was nearly out the door when Ernesto called stiffly, “Héctor, what is this?”

“What is what?” Miguel asked, exasperated. He turned to see Ernesto clutching the lid of the serving dish, glaring into it.

“Your dinner?” Miguel said, “It’s nothing special. Just rice and stuff.”

“’Stuff?’”

“What’s the matter? You don’t like chorizo?”

De la Cruz sighed and shook his head. “Oh, Héctor,” he breathed, “How did we get here? Why must it always be like this?”

“I don’t know,” Miguel snapped, temper flaring, “You tell me.”

He shouldn’t have said that, he just knew it. It had come out in an angry rush before he could think twice about it. But Ernesto was slipping into one of his quiet moods. Maybe he wouldn’t remember.

“I sometimes wish,” the old man said, “that I knew. I never used to believe in ghosts. Not until you.”

He pushed his empty plate away and stood. “It seems I haven’t the stomach for it tonight. Sleep well, Héctor.”

On a strange, wild impulse, Miguel heard himself say, “You know I can’t, Ernesto.”

De la Cruz’s stride didn’t falter, he didn’t so much as turn his head as he made his way to his bedroom and left Miguel standing in the hall.

The bell didn’t ring that night.

 

~

                Ernesto had tried to cancel his appointment the next week. Miguel got a call from Rosa on Monday, admonishing him to keep a better eye on his charge. At his age, she reminded him, de la Cruz couldn’t afford to miss even doctor’s visit.

                Miguel didn’t mention to call to his employer, but Ernesto nonetheless left the hacienda in a towering temper. His icy rage clung the walls as he swept out of the entrance hall. He did not pare a glance at his caretaker, but Miguel still felt the threat hanging like smoke in the air. He ignored it and hurried to his room to retrieve the hedge trimmer.

He kept them clutched to his chest as he slipped into the trophy room. He didn’t relax his grip until he was kneeling safely behind the closed door of the storage closet and facing the crawlspace. The lightbulb overhead swung in lazy circles, and shadows on the walls rose and fell, breathing.

Miguel could feel his heart beating in his throat and coughed. The chain snapped eagerly when he cut it, flinging itself to the floor in a snakelike coil. Then came the clasps, which flew open at Miguel’s light touch. He hadn’t even flipped them back before they released. The case fell open, its contents clattering in a heap around Miguel’s knees.

He screamed, loud enough to burn, and leapt away. He hit the opposite wall, reflexively crossing himself, and nearly tumbled a stack of boxes. The light was still swinging.

At his feet, a grimy yellow skull leered up him. A golden tooth glinted in the roving light, looking so like the guitar on the other side of the house, that Miguel started giggling. Then he laughed, and then he was cackling, face pressed against the wall. He would not look at it. He would not look.

His wild laughter died on a gasp. It was a damn good thing he was alone in the house.

He knew that eventually he would have to turn around. He stared at the wall a moment more. Finally, when it was starting to feel ridiculous, he faced the bones.

The lining of the suitcase was stained black. Rags that may have once been red were unraveling in the pile. Frayed embroidery and what could only have been hair fluttered within a bony cage, like down ripped out of a pillow.

The skull watched him watching it.

There wasn’t much left to hold the skeleton together, but it appeared to have been kept in something like a fetal position, curled up tighter than a living person could have managed. In fact, Miguel noticed now that one of the legs (what was the shin bone called?) had been snapped in two clean pieces. An arm had been cracked and twisted as well. The better to cram a tall frame into a small space. The lower mandible lay on the floor beside the rest of the skull, giving the impression of a wide, open-mouthed smile. The skeleton was entirely too pleased to be lying at Miguel’s feet on the storage room floor.

_“Hey!”_ he imagined the corpse would say, “ _You found me!”_

“I found you,” he agreed, “Now what?”

The police were still an option. Now that he had a body on his hands, the police were the obvious solution. But he had promised to bring Héctor home, and by God he was going to do it. He could figure out what to tell the authorities afterwards.

So, hands shaking, he fetched a towel from the nearest bathroom and used it to nudge what he could back into the suitcase.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to it, “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to go back, but I need to take you to Santa Cecilia. That’s what you want, right? I’ll take you home, and then we can get you a nice, big coffin. Sound good? Sounds good.”

Some hairs remained on the floor after he resituated the grisly suitcase. It didn’t feel right to sweep them up with a broom, so he collected them with the towel and took it to the garden. There he let them fly away with the wind.

“Almost free,” he said, wrapping his arms around himself, “Almost there.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, you guys, I am so sorry about the wait! I had family visiting and drama at work, and then my AC broke and it's been a mess. But, things are getting back on track now. Kudos to Agent_Numbah_227 for correctly guessing the contents of the suitcase! And apologies if this wasn't quite the meeting you had in mind.


	10. In the Chapel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel hears Ernesto's tale.

Miguel didn’t waste time packing his things. He paused only to collect the gruesome suitcase and skull guitar before hurrying to the phone in the study. 

“I’m just calling to let you know I’m leaving.”

“Miguel….”

“No, Rosa. I’m leaving. I can’t stay here. I need to come home. Right now.”

Rosa was quiet for a beat, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, “But I’m not staying here. I’m leaving right now.”

“Okay,” Rosa said, “Do you need me to do anything?”

Something seemed to have caught in his throat. It was painful to swallow, and his eyes stung, “I’m sorry, Rosa. There’s a lot happening. I’ll explain everything soon. But I can’t be here anymore.”

“I understand, Miguel. Don’t be sorry. This is my fault.”

“Will you meet me there? At home? I need to tell everyone what I… oh, _Dío_ , I feel sick.”

“Miguel? What’s wrong?” Her voice was strained.

He wanted to tell her, just spill it out over the phone and be done with it. But this was something that required evidence. “I’ll meet you at home. I need to leave now.” He hung up without waiting for an answer.

He had nearly made it to the front door before he was brought up short by Ernesto stepping cavalierly into the hall.

“Señor de la Cruz!” Miguel cried, stumbling backwards, “You’re back!”

“Sí,” the old man rumbled, “Does that bother you?”

Miguel said nothing, but eyed de la Cruz warily while the taut silence stretched between them.

“I hear you’ve decided to leave early,” Ernesto began, good-naturedly.

The only way he could have heard that, Miguel knew, was if he had been listening in on his call. Maybe with the phone in the sala.

 “Yes,” he replied, taking a step closer to the door.

Ernesto glanced meaningfully at the guitar case in Miguel’s hand. In the other, he clutched the cracked leather suitcase, stained dark where a chain had once coiled around it.  

“I’m sorry to see you go.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Miguel felt like he was staring down a cougar instead of a frail old man with a cane. He took a slow, sliding step to the door, as if he could slip past his erstwhile employer.

“I can’t change your mind? I would hate to see the last of you.”

Oh would you? Miguel thought viciously. After Ernesto's efforts to get rid of him, Miguel found his sudden change of heart disturbing.

“No,” Miguel said firmly, taking another step, “Hate me all you want, but you can’t change my mind.”

Ernesto’s face went curiously blank. His warm smile and nonchalant slouch were gone. He was standing straighter than Miguel had ever seen him. His mouth was a thin line, eyes sharp as chipped stone. 

“Oh,” he intoned, “I could never hate you.”

They were caught in a standoff. Miguel knew he should just leave. De la Cruz couldn’t stop him. But even as he stood in the threshold of the old hacienda, he couldn’t make himself take one step further.

“I just,” he began, though he wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. De la Cruz watched him and waited.

“Ernesto,” Miguel decided to say, “Why?”

De la Cruz sighed and gestured vaguely toward the door, “Walk with me, Héctor.”

Miguel followed him onto the drive and walked beside him as they meandered towards the orchard. He kept a tight grip on the cases.

“Try to understand,” de la Cruz said, “Becoming famous musicians had been our dream since before we could dream. You and me. I never gave up on that. I never stopped believing. But you,” he scowled, “After everything we had done for each other. After everything I have done for you, your whole pointless life, you shunt me to the side as soon as some pretty señorita bats her lashes at you!”

“That isn’t what happened,” Miguel snapped. The letters tucked in the guitar case told a very different story. In his loneliness, his great-grandfather often reminisced about his and Imelda’s courtship. The letters, of course, couldn’t paint the full picture, but Miguel thought he had reasonably solid idea of what had happened.

“You encouraged Héctor and Imelda. You never said anything about being ‘shunted to the side.’ You told him to seize his moment!”

“I shouldn’t have had to say anything!” Ernesto’s voice rang over the hedges, fluttered in the air. “We were brothers, Héctor! You should have known! And anyway, how could I have begun to guess how much time you were going waste on that woman? The way you doted on her, obsessed over her. It was pitiful. And that child! Pah! As though there wasn’t a whole world out there, waiting for us.”

“They were his world,” Miguel insisted. He stopped on the gravel path and tried to catch Ernesto’s eye, “Can’t you understand that? His family was his world. Haven’t you ever loved anything?”

“I loved _you_!”

“Never mind,” Miguel said archly, “I don’t want to fight. It’s obvious there’s no point talking to you about it. I need to go.”

“No!” Ernesto shouted, snatching at Miguel’s arm, “That isn’t everything. There’s more I need to tell you. About after you died.”

He shuffled along the path again. Miguel could only follow.

“Do you remember that night, Héctor?” De la Cruz asked. “We’d been traveling for months. You were always homesick, but that night was different. You were different. I only barely managed to convince you to stay long enough for a toast.” The old man actually laughed as he said, “Can you believe it? I don’t remember what I used. Sometimes I’m sure it was arsenic. Others I just know it was cyanide. I was also thinking maybe it had been formaldehyde? Barbital? Perhaps a cocktail, after a fashion. You never knew, of course. Never had time. I think you were dead before you hit the street. Were you?”

Miguel couldn’t look at him, “I don’t know.”

“Ah, well,” Ernesto shrugged as though it didn’t matter, “The result was the same. There you were, cold on the ground. Mexico City wasn’t as busy then as it is now. These days I doubt you’d ever find a quiet street, even in the dead of night. But back then, it was quiet. That night, no one saw.

“I worried for months that someone would notice. That someone had seen me dragging you back to the room. Or burying the suitcase in the plains. I was afraid someone would ask whatever happened to that other musician who played with me? Even after you were hidden in the dirt, I was terrified that as the city expanded, someone would dig you up and, somehow, they would know what had happened. I had to go back for you. I didn’t rest easy until you were here, locked away, safe and sound. But I needn’t have worried. As far as I was ever aware, not even your perfect little wife looked for you. No one noticed. No one cared. Except me.” 

“Is that all you wanted to say?” Miguel demanded, temper flaring.

“Not quite,” Ernesto said. They had reached the chapel.

They paused just outside, craning to look up at the bell tower.

“This isn’t a confession,” Ernesto said, “I didn’t do anything wrong. If I was going to achieve the dream that you had abandoned, I needed to be willing to do whatever it took. To seize my moment.”

Ernesto led him inside.

The pews had been covered with white sheets. Splintered pieces of wood littered the marble floor. Shrouds of tarp hung from the beams overhead, blurring with the shafts of sunlight that cut through holes in the roof. The altar was cracked down the center.

Miguel hung back near the doorway while de la Cruz made his way to the dais. A statue of the virgin mother loomed in the shadows behind the altar. Her hands had been broken off. She frowned crossly at the remaining stumps.

Ernesto stood right up against the altar, beneath Mary, caged by a cascade of sunlight that fell from the bell tower above. Miguel realized he was looking at a parody of a stage and spotlight, with the star of the show gazing down at him.  

 “I wanted to tell you, Héctor,” Ernesto said, his voice ringing, “That you can go now. It doesn’t matter anymore what you do. I have lived a very long, very successful life. You can go back to whatever is left of your family, you can even tell the world what I did. Who cares? It’s over, and I won. Whatever happens now, I still won.”

He gazed blandly at the sky through the rotting roof, “That being said,” he mused, “I don’t see why I have to make it easy.”

Miguel could take only one step back before de la Cruz called in a ringing voice, “Security!”

Six uniformed guards burst from the wings beside the altar. There was no time to try to explain that their boss was a murderer and a fraud, no guarantee they would care if they knew. There was only the vice-tight conviction in Miguel’s bones that _they must not take the suitcase!_

With the pounding of his pursuers’ feet behind and the blazing white of the sun in front, Miguel fled the chapel. Ernesto was left standing alone beneath the cold regard of Mary’s statue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVE!!!  
> Yeah, I don't really have an excuse for this one. :/  
> This would have been the last chapter, but I'd decided re-add in some scenes that I had originally deleted (and therefore need to type up again. Always save your drafts, my friends!)  
> It does mean more waiting for updates, but hopefully a more exciting and overall satisfying conclusion as well!  
> Thank you so much for your wonderful comments! I love hearing from you, and you guys really keep me motivated. :)


	11. The Way Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel comes home.

There was only the hacienda. Beyond the quivering orchards, Miguel could only run back into the house he’d thought he had escaped.

He was weighed down by the guitar case slung over his back and the guards were gaining easily.

They would have caught him if it hadn’t been for the house. Once he sprinted into its shadow, they faltered and held back, muttering.

He paused on the portico and threw a glance back at them. Two detached themselves from the group and advanced carefully. Miguel ducked into the house and was out of the atrium before they’d reached the doorway.

  “Come on, Miguel,” one of them called, “What’s going on? What’re you doing?”

Salvador’s voice echoed off the stone walls. He and Pedro shared a dark look and crept further into the house.

“Kid,” Pedro tried, “You’re only making things worse for yourself! Just come out!”

They would probably have had a better time finding Miguel if they’d split up, but neither was willing to brave the yawning corridors alone. Each kept close to other and strained to hear their quarry.

Miguel had reached the trophy room. It was the only place he could think to go. He stared at the door, gasping and trying to ignore the stitch in his side. No doubt someone was waiting for him at every exit. He couldn’t possibly evade them forever and there was no way out. Maybe he could just leave the guitar? It was Héctor that mattered, not the instrument, but the thought of leaving it behind with de la Cruz left something cold curling in his gut. But it was also weighing him down.

He set down the suitcase and fiddled with straps on the guitar case. The skeleton itself had proved much heavier than he’d anticipated. De la Cruz had been smart to take him on that meandering walk to the chapel before setting security on him. He wasn’t getting out of there with both cases, at least not without a miracle. He’d have to retrieve the letters he’d stuffed into the guitar case and then leave it, he decided. It rankled, but there wasn’t much else he could do.

Miguel knelt to do just that when the sharp tap of approaching footsteps reached him. He was out of time. He snatched the suitcase back up and was brought to a plummeting standstill. The suitcase was too light. He wasted precious seconds flicking it open and sobbed with frustrated horror when the lid flopped haplessly onto the floor.

The suitcase was empty.

How? _How?_ Helpless tears welled in his eyes and burned tracks down his face. After everything, how could the suitcase possibly be empty?

“Alright Miguel, it’s over.”

They had found him. Salvador and Pedro stood at the end of the hallway. Salvador reached out a tentative hand, “I don’t know what’s going on here, kid, but you need to… to….”

Miguel watched, bemused, as Salvador trailed off into petrified silence. Pedro began to keen, a high, helpless sound and grabbed at Salvador’s jacket in a white-knuckled grip while his partner shook his head and stared in horrified fascination at Miguel.

“Santa Maria,” he wheezed, clutching at his throat, “Oh God, oh please, God!”

Bewildered, Miguel stood and raised his arms placatingly, “Guys?” he asked. He took a step forward.

_Tap._

Something moved behind him.

He took another step.

_Hiss._

They weren’t looking at Miguel, their gazes were fixed just a little over his shoulder.

He turned just as Salvador wailed and tore off down the hallway, back towards the atrium, with Pedro close behind. As their cries echoed and faded, Miguel was left looking wildly about an empty hall. There was nothing there.

Nothing but the suitcase, closed again, and reassuringly heavy when Miguel lifted it.

Hands shaking, Miguel hoisted the guitar and the suitcase and took off again. He decided against using the front door, and instead made his way to the garden around the side of the house. He wondered if Salvador and Pedro would have time to spread the tale of what they had seen, or if they would be believed. Clearly the security staff were wary enough to avoid going inside the mansion, but would they buy such an incredible story? What would the they think? What would _Ernesto_ think? Would he give up? He’d already insisted that it didn’t matter what Miguel did. But then, if that were true, why would he try to stop him?

He reached the arched doorway and paused, listening. He thought he could just make out the low buzz of a conversation when a huge, percussive sound rocked the very walls. Miguel flinched at its roaring intensity. It came again, louder than before. Miguel could feel the force of the noise pressing against his ears, churning beneath his feet. Once more, the bell in the chapel rang out like thunder, worse than thunder.

Voices carried faintly from outside.

“Is that the chapel?”

“Where is Señor de la Cruz?”

“Is he still in there?”

“Oh, God, oh, God!”

“Salvador, would you shut up for a minute?”

They were moving away, having apparently given up on finding Miguel.

Then came the final, resounding crash. A strident note pierced into the fragile air, a triumphant scream of metal and stone meeting in a bone-shaking crescendo that hung over the grounds and faded into the sky.

After that, only silence.

 

~

 

Miguel met no resistance crossing the grounds. The gatehouse was empty when he reached it. No doubt everyone had turned out to witness the spectacle. He didn’t think to borrow a maintenance truck or even a golf cart. He walked through the gates and down the hill.

When he’d gotten far enough away that the house was lost from view, he was startled half out of his skin by a shrieking ambulance hurtling past. There was only one place it could possibly be going.

The sun burned into the asphalt which threw the heat back up again. The suitcase and guitar grew heavier, and still he walked. He wasn’t sure how far away the nearest town was. The hacienda and surrounding estate had been remote, quiet. Where no one would come poking and prying.

Sweat ran down his neck and back, like scuttling insects. The sky began to grow dark, but no less scorching. The ambulance returned, slinking silently away into the growing dark.

Miguel’s mouth had gone gummy and dry.

Headlights blinked into existence down the road and he could have cried with relief. He leapt into the street, calling and waving, until the driver jerked to a stop beside him, and only then did he recognize Rosa’s car.

“Miguel!” she cried, out of the car almost before it had stopped, “Oh, Miguel! Where have you been? I was so worried! Are you alright? What happened?”

Miguel breathlessly returned her hug, throat burning, and could only giggle into her shoulder.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” he croaked.

“Did you try to _walk_ home?” she demanded shrilly, “What were you thinking? Of all the ridiculous, stupid, unbelievable,” she bit off the rest and instead began to babble, “I was so worried. I told everyone where you’d been and that you were coming home and then you didn’t show up and after that phone call and what happened to Señor de la Cruz, I thought,” her lips began to tremble, “It doesn’t matter what I thought.”

  “It’s okay,” Miguel assured her, “I’m okay. Just tired. Um, do you have any water with you?”

Rosa gave a teary laugh and reached through the driver’s door to retrieve a water bottle. It was in the glove box next to insurance papers, napkins, granola bars, a hairbrush, a make-up kit, a compact tube of hairspray, batteries, and a utility knife. It was so familiar, so _Rosa,_ that Miguel could feel himself tearing up again.

He let his cousin fuss over him and gently situate him in the passenger’s seat. She carefully took the guitar and laid it almost tenderly in the backseat, but Miguel would not be parted from the suitcase. It stayed by his feet while he nodded off to the sound of Rosa’s voice. He slept the rest of the way home.

 

~

 

Everyone was waiting at the gate to the Rivera household except Mamá Coco. It was decided that the excitement would be a bit too much for her, and she was encouraged to wait in her room. Elena was a mess of nerves, wringing her hands and biting her nails. Her brother Enrique considered reaching out to reassure her but couldn’t make himself do it.

The group cast long, winding shadows on the road in front of the shop. They had expected their son back hours ago, and the food Elena had frantically prepared had long gone cold.

Abel was the one who saw them first. “Look,” he cried, straining to point over everyone’s heads, “It’s Rosa’s car!”

Luisa clapped her hands together as though praying.

Rosa pulled to a stop and quietly stepped out, holding a finger to her lips. “He’s sleeping,” she whispered as she joined them, “I found him on the road, he was trying to walk back.”

“Walk?” Luisa gasped, “Why? What happened?”

Rosa rubbed tiredly at her eyes and shrugged, “Have you heard yet? I’m sure the radio or on TV, they’ve… no? Ernesto de la Cruz is dead.”

A low murmur arose. Rosa waited for her family to quiet before going on, “It was a stupid accident. There was an old chapel on the property, in very bad shape, and the bell fell. I don’t know what he was doing there, but it killed him instantly. I wondered if Miguel had seen it, or something, and that was why he was acting so strangely, but the security team said he’d left before the accident. I don’t know if he’s even aware of what happened yet. I kept the radio off on the way here.”

“I know,” a low voice responded.

The family erupted with chatter and surged forward as one to embrace Miguel as he clambered out of the car. The hugs were made a little awkward by the suitcase clutched in his hand, but no one commented on it. Elena came within a hair’s breadth of saying something about what was clearly a guitar case on his back, but a quick stab of guilt and a sharp look from her brother held her back. What mattered, she decided, was that Miguel was safe and home. And, she discovered with teary joy, there was not one ounce of resentment or reservation in the way he embraced her.  

 

~

 

Coco sat in her room, rocking quietly in her chair. Something was going on, she just knew it. The whole family had been stormy and nervous, like horses fretting in their stalls. Elena and Enrique in particular were behaving strangely. They were speaking to each other again.

It must have had something to do with the phone call from Rosa the day before. That was when it began. Abel had answered and gone slack-jawed. He’d whispered something to Berto, who whispered to Carmen, and so it went until they were all hissing like a pit of snakes.

She’d asked, of course. But they’d waved her off with vague pleasantries and went back to scheming among themselves. Well, fine. She’d find out eventually what the fuss was about, although she suspected Miguel was involved. Perhaps he’d been spotted playing a concert, or maybe he’d decided to give up music after all. Maybe, Coco thought with a quickly strangled surge of hope, maybe he was coming home.

Thinking like that was silly. Musicians didn’t come home, after all.

Her thoughts turned, as they often did these days, to her father. She’d yearned for him as a child, resented him as a youth, had forgotten him in her adulthood, and now it seemed she was a child again. Her family certainly treated her like one. No one ever talked down to her mamá. But then, Imelda hadn’t forgotten anything as she aged. If anything, her memory turned sharp, carved in stone and immutable. The story always stayed the same.

And perhaps her mother wasn’t quite the steady rock that Coco had always known. Lately she’d heard her mamá crying at night. The sound would drift through her window from the courtyard. Unable to rise from her bed, Coco couldn’t creep to the window and see, but she knew her mother’s voice. In her lucid moments, Coco would wonder if Imelda had been sitting by the well, crying, for the nearly twenty years she’d been gone. When Coco herself went to meet her, would she be able to draw her away? Or was she doomed to wait here forever for a man who was never coming back?

Now stop it, she told herself. There was no point in getting caught up in all that again.

A commotion outside pulled her from her musings. It sounded like the whole family was gathered in the courtyard, talking at once. The jumble of voices grew closer, accompanied by stomping feet.

“Miguel!” someone, perhaps Enrique called, “Where are you going?”

“I’ll explain everything,” a hoarse voice responded. Could that rasp have possibly come from her grandson? “There’s just something I need to do first.”

    The door opened, and Coco felt her heart constrict at the sight of the man in the doorway. A guitar slung on his back, suitcase in hand. He looked worn and sunburnt, a little stooped, but _there._

Directly behind him stood Rosa, Luisa, Enrique, Carmen, Gloria, Berto, and Franco. Abel towered over them all and had to duck to peer into the room. Manny and Benny were trying to shove their way in. All of them were trying to talk to the newcomer at the same time.

“Papá?” she asked breathlessly.

 The crowd fell immediately silent and stared at her, then at him. He wavered before setting down the suitcase and crouching beside her chair.  “Do you remember me?” he asked softly.

 “Of course I do,” she cried, “I knew you’d come back, I knew you hadn’t forgotten about us!”

She leaned towards the window and called out, “Mamá! You can stop crying now! Papá is home!”

While the rest of the family muttered, the man in front of her opened his guitar case. Her father’s guitar gleamed as he lifted it to reveal a packet of letters with a small photo tucked into the twine.

“These are for you,” he said, gently setting them in her hands, “They were supposed to reach you a long time ago, but,” he sighed, “They never made it.”

“I have them now,” she rushed to reassure him, “And you’re back!”

 “Yes,” he said, smiling at last, as he began to pluck a familiar tune, “We’re home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at last! This was alternatively wonderful and painful to write, and it feels so bittersweet to have reached the end. You guys are the best! If it hadn't been for your encouragement, I don't know if I would have made it this far. I hope you guys have as much fun reading the ending as I did writing it (I maybe had a bit too much fun dropping that bell). A big thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments. I love hearing what you guys think of each chapter!


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